


Day and Night

by Dhobi ki Kutti (dhobikikutti)



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-03
Updated: 2001-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:22:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhobikikutti/pseuds/Dhobi%20ki%20Kutti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Attractions relation to opposition</p><p>Set in BtVS Season 4/Angel Season 1</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day and Night

He got up in the morning and stretched. A nice, long, cat-in-the-winter-sun stretch, with a yawn that began from somewhere near his toes and ended with a dog-like shake. A lovely feeling of release. Propping up his tousled, leonine head, his sleep-slitted eyes smiled at the warm spring sun tumbling through the window. It was, he glanced at the clock on the opposite wall, 11:25 AM, a beautiful green, flowery day for those with the ability to smell the air that blew in through the city. The sharp, fresh light of early morning had given way to a more mellow, mature noon brightness, and the air had lost the sea-breeze tang that smelt of coffee and fresh newsprint. It now held movement, and the oxygen-heavy taste of well-fed trees, heightened by the rubber plant growing sleek in the nearby window. The window lay naked, its thick black blankets pulled firmly aside, flooding the room with the warmth of a pulsing metropolis.

* * *

The room was dark as a rainforest, and its deep silence turned in on itself, spinning a cocoon around its walls. A slight snoring came from the lump in the middle of the bed; a huddled figure that tangled the bed sheets around it like printed cotton chains. Closer inspection revealed a feral, matted mass of tawny hair that hid a face strong in the lines of its jaw and chin. Hands curled, claw-like with sharp, pointed fingers. Under the disarranged pillow lay a pointed wooden weapon, its sides worn silky smooth with long familiarity. Clothes lay tossed about the bed, some blood-spattered, some torn, all more fashionable than functional. The small bedside clock that ticked just outside the range of angry hands showed that the time was 12:15, but it held its peace. Outside the grey sky muttered a steady drizzle, the silent shadows matching the closed curtains in their successful battle against the light.

* * *

He got up and smiled at the sunlight. Extending his pale, unfreckled arms over his head in a luxurious stretch. Reaching out, he picked up a pair of soft black sweatpants that lay folded neatly at the foot of the bed, and pulled them over his black silk boxers. Bare-chested, he moved with lazy fluidity towards the bathroom. A place clean, and Spartan and toilet paper less. Smile. How do they go to the bathroom in outer space, daddy? Eauuw! And a few centuries ago their ancestors, equally little-boy curious, would ask about a vampire. And some battle-weary girl and her studious companion would turn tiredly, amused, ready to be distracted by the naïve young questioner in the inn. They don't need to, not having any human metabolism. And then the faces would go grim, remembering the last scene of carnage that had been a forceful reminder of the non-excreta generating nourishment that they did need.

He splashed his face with cool, sparkling water, carefully smoothing the night-residue from his eyes. Letting the smooth liquid roll around his mouth before limpidly letting it flow out. He reached for a toothbrush, standing in a clay mug underneath the square reflection less mirror that hung over the sink. Brushing his teeth was a habit he was fond of, a cleansing, satisfying ritual picked up sometime in the 19th century. It was a body that was human, although the spirit that perverted its functions was demonic. And anything physical needed care. Water, the cold, stinging hail that flew from the shower and pricked his alabaster skin touched his human body in a way any demon would appreciate. Sensation, any physical feeling of tingling, brightening pinpricks was a gift. He ran his soapy hands down the planes of his smooth, hard body, the body that was linked to a demon in a way that no human would understand.  
Humans have souls, or they think they do, which amount to the same result. They are distanced by their bodies, by the fact that they have never been unlinked from them. They think that they are more then the shape that they occupy. A demon has a mind, but it does not have a soul, and so its body is it's compete identity.

* * *

She got up snarling. A dream had woken her, a painful, angry place where her supernatural visions and human terror combined to drag her, and she reacted instinctively, the soul a predator to the last. The rain was lashing furiously at her window now, and she didn't want to get up, to face the burden of another breathless, peopled day. She stumbled out of bed, half-comatose, half-clothed, tripped over a scuffed pair of kicked-off shoes, and glaring through the tangled mane with cat's eyes. The room was hollow, carved out like a cave in a mountain of darkness, moist with claustrophobic closeness. Party-girl peopled it like some kind of fairy dust, her fancy makeup lying on top of a crossbow, her silky lingerie smothering the bottles of holy water. The dressing table was all fancy deodorants and eye makeup.

But the bathroom was home to a warrior. From the antiseptic soap in the niche near the shower, to the neat rows of liniment and bandages in the shelf under the sink, there was protection in every corner. She slumped on the pot, a foamy brush dangling out of one corner of her mouth like an unlit cigarette as she dully ripped off toilet paper with another. Steaming water poured into the tub and she shrugged out of her oversized t-shirt to sink into its deadening embrace. Hot water made for a good blanket to hide under, and the closed steamed up window still shut the day out. Sighing, she stretched out under the suds. She would not wake up just yet. The darkness was still able to hold her.

* * *

"Hi! Angel!" Cordelia smiled at the tall man who had walked into the room. It was lunchtime; she was beginning to receive the daily quota of calls that trickled in every day. People only tackled their hopeless problems after things like morning deadlines and school-going kids had been taken care of. She would open the office mid-morning and begin on the paperwork that the previous night had left her with, by afternoon the day's plans would start shaping. She knew what she had to do, and her boss played little part in the daily grind. Still, almost every day, he would be up, as he was now, smiling at her as he watered the flowers on his table, meticulously clearing up the paper storm that her haphazard but productive way of working had generated.

Warm coffee. It was the smell that mattered, that freshly brewed, sharp spicy tang that leapt to his throat as he dragged the hot, thick liquid from the mug. Not as thick as blood, but that didn't matter, because blood was not breakfast, not a meal, not with a soul it couldn't be. Like glucose, pure energy, it was a strength-giver, the bags in his fridge to be taken when the demon metabolism demanded. But he woke up in the day because he enjoyed the bustle of life around him, and his sensation-seeking psyche yearned for coffee. Thick and creamy like the fresh milk on an Irish farm, and sugar that reached into his numb taste buds. Later on, perhaps, the crunch of a cracker would entertain him as well. He reached across the table to take some of the heavier books from the dark-haired girl studying with pursed up lips and a fashion model's body. There was such normalcy in the uncaring, indifferent warmth between them - the daytime safeness of taken-for-granted love. She began her ritual, fascinating stream of complaints and bitchy, pithy analysis, and he listened, and nodded, and laughed. Laughter was as commonplace as the phone ringing and as warm as the sunlight on the metal bars on the window.

* * *

"Buffy? Are you up yet?" it was thrust like a spear through her comatose brain, and her mind snarled at its touch. The voice of the owner of the womb her body had come from, the one who had taken care of it for so many years, the one who understood so little about it. Love was an Oscar-night emotion, to be taken out and aired on the sacredest of special occasions - near-death experiences and axe-wielding demons and greeting-card company generated holidays. The day-to-day toll bridges that connected her with people were built on patience. "Yeah, I'm awake" thrown back dully and the body was hauled wearily out of the bathtub. A fraying towel to suck away the water, careful now, that gash on the left shoulder hasn't healed yet. Bodies adapt easily to familiar pain, and blows and falls now left less of a dull ache than newly carved knife scars.

She looked at herself in the mirror as she began pulling on underwear. There was a human body, young and beautiful, looking back, with an inhuman soul staring out of the moss coloured eyes. A strange being lived in her mind, a fighter who infected her flesh with supernaturally healing platelets and cat-reflexes and a bulldozer desire to kill. Except that sometimes that was she, and the interloper was a heedless young teenager who didn't think much and decorated the warrior's short, blunted nails with sparkling, ephemeral colour. Her soul balanced between the two, split down the middle. And so the two sides focus relentlessly on the body they share, nurturing it, displaying it, challenging it. So much easier to groom and train - this body, forget the mess in the mind.

* * *

He was frowning now, furrows in the alabaster, overhanging forehead that Cordelia knew and loved so well. It spoke for him when his eyes were silent - small pools of mud that sometimes turned squishy and warm, when the sun was just so. The eyebrows knit, and the soft lashes lifted, and she knew, any moment now, and it was all so familiar, and dear, and...

"Oh-oh! There's guilty-face again! Let me guess, you just read that someone died in the newspaper, and because it doesn't specifically say that he wasn't killed by fangs sucking the blood out of him, you're thinking this is your problem, and also, because you seem to think that just because you killed a few hundred people a few centuries ago you have the copyright on mass murder, it's also your fault! What is with the eternal guilt trip, Angel? People die! Face facts, you should know - you'd like to be able to!" And that release of tension from the forehead, that soft blankness that slipped over at her mockery and was mirrored in her own bright smile, yes, its okay to let go because I will always be here to forgive you and put you down, he has heard it in every disdainful barb she has thrown at him, and it was the ground he had built his life on.

The dead person spoke to him, another job, another pinprick, and he cared, because for every body he can avenge, is one he has to atone for, and it is a passion, and a religion and also, incidentally, a living, even though he isn't. And so serious intense forehead stared back and logical mind withdrew and speculated, and decisive, distant (beautifully chiselled) mouth made quiet commands, and still, lifeless heart was warm and so at peace with this threat-a-minute, rickety-elevator existence and the snide, shallow sunshine-girl who binds him relentlessly to reality. Computers hummed and the Internet was trawled and phones were dialled and books dusted off, and there was a plan and more people and much armament and quarrelling, and it's all a job and he will do it, with competence and unconcern.

* * *

She stalked downstairs to the kitchen, there was orange juice in a tall, clear glass, and food on the table, and her mother was waiting. "So, how was your night? Did you come in very late?" And she ate, and took up the threads of the net that surrounded her, that held her trapped in a world that contained college lectures and TV sitcoms and popcorn, and perhaps, incidentally, life. Because she was not living, but dying, and had been for the past four years, a furious, long-drawn out death. And the mother next to her, the one she should watch turn old and grey, will have to bury her, should any remnants of her body be found, and she does not really know.  
So she talked, and laughed, and described a night like the many others before, dark and bloodstained and adrenaline-filled and thoroughly commonplace. And quicksilver, acid-tipped jests fell from her mouth like hailstorms, blanketing the bare ground of her story. And the "yadda yadda" accounted for a sharp steel knife that reached for her heart and got her shoulder instead. She is a true child of her generation, she knows how to package her story, edit the horror, fun it up, keep them laughing, and you can get away with anything. And so her mother watched with a puckered forehead and smilingly frowning eyes as her daughter refused her milk and stuffed herself with noxious sugar cereal, more worried about the lifetime dietary omissions that she was making, than with her night time games in the graveyard. And when Buffy said that she needed to go to Giles's to research on some of the loose ends, her mother was as unconcerned about seeing her again, as her daughter was. Shallowness and frivolity are the other side of not thinking, and Buffy only really thinks about how to fight, and stay alive. Beyond that, there isn't much of importance. And the faster her heart beats in a battle, the more dead it is, cold and calculating.

* * *

There had been work throughout the afternoon, a lunchtime spent in the sewers and much deliberation with Wesley and scanning of newspaper files. And then the sun sunk below the skyscrapers, and suddenly it was his city and he could come out. And he walked through the dark alleys and neon-lit streets with a sword by his side and his leather coat flapping against his legs, a cell phone connecting him with the steely young woman who is partying unconcernedly under flashing lights. The summer city was a warm place to be at night, moist air like a comforter sheltering everyone in its impartial embrace, and there were people everywhere, whom Angel could smell. But he had fed his body, and he saw everything as a pulsating, storied pallet of emotion, and their blood did not haunt him.

An old warehouse was the scene for the battle that ensued, with dingy board walls to bounce off and smash against and even turn into stakes, should the occasion arise. And fighting and falling next to him was a young man with the blood of warriors dripping from the cut on his cheek and wisecracks of a modern satirist spouting from his tongue. "Gunn-ho" he punned deadpan-edly as he smashed his tentacled opponent into Angel's way and the marbled forehead winced at the pun before stoically taking a fore-cut on the jaw. He smashed back, and threw a stake to the struggling Englishman on the floor who managed to dust a vampire just before it jumped on the back of Gunn, who, was, in turn, throwing Angel's battle axe back to him. And they had fun, and there was much blood shed, and some of it theirs, and it didn't matter at all, because ultimately it all comes down to them doing things together, and liking it, and, oh, incidentally, helping people.

* * *

Much turning of pages and incantations of spells had been going on through the afternoon, and research had revealed the monster, and Willow with her warm red hair and her words falling like spring rain was concocting a spell. Polishing his glasses was Buffy's champion, her knight in tweed, who thought of himself as a groom and drove her as hard as any jockey. And on the other side, the court jester, the boy-man who dragged her, willy-nilly, back to the land that she was protecting, the world of helpless, normal people with spirits too big for their puny fragile hearts, and courage beyond their means. And the others, the ex-demon, literal and innocent, and the witch, timid and powerful, and somewhere in the periphery a snarky beautiful vampire who flitted across the stage in spot lit cameos... these were all involved in the intricate dance that wove the threads that she balanced on, the ones she held on to, and repaired, and protected.

But in the end, there was another death to be created, and she was a spider, and it was her job. So she stalked in the darkness, and fought off death with a pun and quip because she knew that her fists were not invincible, and that secret was to be hidden at all costs. Here was life, in this furious, precise science of destruction, in this dance of blow and cut and duck. This was where everything made sense, because she was fighting for her life, and she had already come to terms with its loss. Snap-kick, and the witch's fulminating potion was saved, swing-slash, and the demon was driven away from the others. And then finally it was dead, and so was she, and now must go back to the pretence, that she was not alone, that she belonged.

* * *

He walked softly through the darkened room, night air slowly removing the stench of dead demon from his clothes. Cordy had been reassured by a call, she would now proceed to dance herself into oblivion, an aspirin and a notebook in her fashionable beaded purse. Gunn and Wesley had left for their own homes, one with a backward grin and the other with a tired wave. He was alone, and his home was underground, connected to the slumbering world through a rickety cage elevator and a sewer. His silent smile echoed in the cool surroundings, he was home, and people were safe, and his city slept sweetly. And he was a family man.

* * *

She swayed wildly in the anonymous crowd, pulsating music blanketing her with its impersonal celebration. And there were her friends, her rescuers, wisecracking at a nearby table, and slow dancing in their lovers' arms. People all around radiated an energy that leapt like the passionate flickering lights, here was warmth, and movement, and life. And she was in the middle of it, surrounded by the symbols of her success, the young beautiful world she saved on daily basis. She danced, as its totem, the most beautiful, golden, shining goddess of them all and touched with smile and word every being that mattered to her. The world around her was empty, and cold, and there was nothing here to kill and conquer. And she was alone.


End file.
